"PIRATE" HAZON.
If the population of Johannesburg devoted its days to doing _konza_ to
King Scrip, it devoted its nights to amusing itself. There was an
enterprising theatrical company and a lively circus. There was a
menagerie, where an exceedingly fine young woman was wont nightly to
place her head within a lion's mouth for the delectation, and to the
enthusiastic admiration of Judaea, and all the region round about. There
were smoking-concerts galore--more or less good of their kind--and,
failing sporadic forms of pastime, there were numerous bars--and
barmaids, all of which counted for something in the relaxation of the
forty thousand inhabitants of Johannesburg--mostly brokers. We are
forgetting. There were other phases of nocturnal excitement, more or
less of a stimulating nature--frequent rows, to wit, culminating in a
nasty rough-and-tumble, and now and then a startling and barbarous
murder.
Now, to Laurence Stanninghame not any of the above forms of diversion
held out the slightest possible attractiveness. The theatrical show
struck him as third-rate, and as for circuses and menageries, he
supposed they had been good fun when he was a child. He did not care
twopence about the pleasures of the bar unless he wanted a drink, and
for barmaids and their allurements less than nothing. So having
already, with Rainsford or Wheeler, and seven other spirits more wicked
than themselves, gone the round three or four times, just to see what
there was to be seen, and found that not much, he had subsided into a
good bit of a stay-at-home. A pipe, a newspaper or book, and bed, would
be his evening program--normally, that is; for now and then he would
stroll out to Booyseus. But of that more anon.
The hotel at which he had taken up his quarters was rather a quiet one,
and frequented by quiet people. One set of rooms, among which was his,
opened upon a _stoep_, which fronted a yard, which opened upon the
street. Here of an evening he would drag a chair out upon the _stoep_
and smoke and read, or occasionally chat with some fellow-sojourner in
the house.
One evening he was seated thus alone. Holmes, who had taken up his
quarters at the same hotel, was out, as usual. We say as usual because
Holmes seldom stayed in at night. Holmes was young, and for him the
"attractions" we have striven to enumerate above, and others which we
have not, were attractions. He liked to go the round. He liked to see
all there was to be seen. Well, he saw it.
One evening Laurence, seated thus alone, became aware that another man
was dragging a chair out upon the _stoep_, intending, like himself, to
take the air. Looking up, he saw that it was the man to whom nobody ever
seemed to talk, beyond exchanging the time of day, and that in the most
curt and perfunctory fashion. He had noticed, further, that this
individual seemed no more anxious to converse with other people than
they were to converse with him. He himself had never got beyond this
stage with him, although on easy and friendly terms with the other
people staying in the house.
Yet the man had awakened in him a strange interest, a curiosity that was
almost acute; but beyond the fact that his name was Hazon, and the
darkly veiled hints on the part of those who alluded to the subject,
that he was a ruffian of the deepest dye, Laurence could learn nothing
about him. He noted, however, that if the man seemed disliked, he seemed
about equally feared.
This Hazon was, in truth, somewhat of a remarkable individual. He was of
powerful build, standing about five feet nine. He had a strong,
good-looking face, the lower part hidden in a dark beard, and his eyes
were black, piercing, and rather deep set. The bronze hue of his
complexion, and of the sinewy hands, seemed to tell of a life of
hardness and adventure; and the square jaw and straight, piercing glance
was that of a man who, when roused, would prove a resolute, relentless,
and a most dangerous enemy. In repose the face wore a placidity which
was almost that of melancholy.
In trying to estimate his years, Laurence owned himself puzzled again
and again. He might be about his own age or he might be a great deal
older, that is, anything from forty to sixty. But whatever his age,
whatever his past, the man was always the same, dark, self-possessed,
coldly reticent, inscrutable, somewhat of an awe-inspiring personality.
The nature of his business, too, was no more open than was his past
history. He had been some months in his present quarters, yet was not
known to be doing anything in scrip to any appreciable extent. The boom,
the one engrossing idea in the minds of all alike, seemed to hold no
fascination for Hazon. To him it was a matter of absolutely no
importance. What the deuce, then, was he there for? His impenetrable
reserve, his out-of-the-common and striking personality, his rather
sinister expression, had earned for him a nick-name. He was known all
over the Rand as "Pirate" Hazon, or more commonly "The Pirate," because,
declared the Rand, he looked like one, and at any rate ought to be
hanged for one, to make sure.
Nobody, however, cared to use the epithet within his hearing. People
were afraid of him. One day in the street a tough, swaggering bully,
fearless in the consciousness of his powers as a first-class boxer,
lurched up against him, deliberately, and with offensive intent. Those
who witnessed the act stood by for the phase of excitement dearest of
all to their hearts, a row. There was that in Hazon's look which told
they were not to be disappointed.
"English manners?" he queried, in cutting, contemptuous tone.
"I'll teach you some," rejoined the fellow promptly. And without more
ado he dashed out a terrific left-hander, which the other just escaped
receiving full in the eye, but not entirely as to the cheekbone.
Hazon did not hit back, but what followed amazed even the bystanders.
It was like the spring of an animal--of a leopard or a
bull-dog--combining the lightning swiftness of the one with the grim,
fell ferocity of purpose of the other. The powerful rowdy was lying upon
his back in the red dust, swinging flail-like blows into empty air, and
upon him, in leopard-like crouch, pressing him to the earth, the man
whom he had so wantonly attacked. And his throat was compressed in those
brown, lean, muscular fingers, as in a claw of steel. It was horrible.
His eyes were starting from his head; his face grew blue, then black;
his swollen tongue protruded hideously. His struggles were terrific,
yet, powerful of frame as he was, he seemed like a child in the grasp of
a panther.
A shout of dismay, of warning, broke from the spectators, some of whom
sprang forward to separate the pair. But there was something so awful in
the expression of Hazon's countenance, in the glare of the coal-black
eyes, in the drawn-in brows and livid horror of fiendish wrath, that
even they stopped short. It was, as they said afterwards, as though they
had looked into the blasting countenance of a devil.
"Leave go!" they cried. "For God's sake, leave go! You're killing the
man. He'll be dead in a second longer."
Hazon relaxed his grasp, and stood upright. Beyond a slight heaving of
the chest attendant upon his exertion, he seemed as cool and collected
as though nothing had happened.
"I believe you're right," he said, turning away. "Well, he isn't that
yet."
The attention of the onlookers was concentrated on the prostrate bully,
to restore whom a doctor was promptly sent for from the most likely bar,
for it was midday. But all were constrained to allow that the fellow had
only got what he deserved, which consensus of opinion may or may not
have been due to the fact that he was, if anything, a trifle more
unpopular than Hazon himself.
Now among those who had witnessed this scene from first to last was
Laurence Stanninghame. Not among those who would have interfered--oh,
no--for did he not hold it a primary tenet never, on any pretext, to
interfere in what did not concern him? nor did this principle in those
days involve any effort to keep, all impulse to violate it being long
since dead. Moreover, if the last held good of the badly damaged bully,
society at large could not but be the gainer, since it was clear that he
was a fit representative of a class which is utterly destitute of any
redeeming point which should go to justify its unspeakably vicious,
useless, and rather dangerous existence.
This incident, while enhancing the respect in which Hazon was held, in
no sense tended to lessen his unpopularity, and indeed at that time
nobody had a good word to say for him. Either they said nothing, and
looked the more, or they said a word that was not good--oh, no, not
good.
Now in spite of all such ill repute, possibly by reason of it, his
temperament being what it was, Laurence felt drawn towards this
mysterious personage, for he was pre-eminently one given to forming his
own judgment instead of accepting it ready made from Dick, Tom, and
Harry. If Hazon was vindictive, why, so was he; if unscrupulous, so
could he be if driven to it. He resolved to find an opportunity of
cultivating the man, and if he could not find one he would make it. Now
he saw such an opportunity.
"What do you think of this rumor that the revolution in Brazil is going
to knock out our share market?" he said, suddenly looking up from the
paper he was reading.
"It may do that," answered Hazon. "This year's boom has been a mere sick
attempt at one. Wouldn't take much to knock out what little there is of
it."
Laurence felt a cold qualm. There had been an ominous drop the last day
or two. Still Rainsford and one or two others had recommended him to
hold on. This man spoke so quietly, yet withal so prophetically. What if
he, in his inscrutable way, were more than ordinarily in the know?
"Queer place this," pursued Hazon, the other having uttered a dubious
affirmative. "Taking it all round, it and its crowd, it's not far from
the queerest place I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen some queer
places and some queerish crowds."
"I expect you have. By the way, I suppose you've done a good deal of
up-country hunting?"
"A goodish deal. Are you fond of the gun? I notice you go out pretty
often, but there's nothing to shoot around here."
"I just am fond of it," replied Laurence. "If things turn out all right
I shall cut in with some fellow for an up-country trip if I can. Big
game this time."
The other smiled darkly, enigmatically.
"Yes. That's real--real," he said. "Try some of this," handing his
tobacco bag, as Laurence began to scratch out his empty pipe, "unless,
that is, you haven't got over the new-comer's prejudice against the best
tobacco in the world, the name whereof is Transvaal."
"Thanks. No, I have no prejudice against it. On the contrary, as to its
merits I am disposed to agree with you."
Throughout this conversation Laurence, who had a keen ear for that sort
of thing, could not help noticing the other's voice. It was a pleasing
voice, a cultured voice, and refined withal, nor could his fastidious
ear detect the faintest trace of provincialism or vulgarity about it.
The intonation was perfect. There is nothing so quick to betray to the
sensitive ear any strain of plebeian descent as the voice, and of this
no one was more thoroughly aware than Laurence Stanninghame. This man,
he decided, was of good birth.
The ice broken, they talked on, in the apparently careless, but in
reality guarded way which had become second nature to both of them. More
than one strange and very shady anecdote was Hazon able to narrate
concerning the place and its inhabitants, and especially concerning
certain among the latter who ranked high for morality, commercially or
otherwise. There were actions done in their midst every day, he
declared, which, for barefaced and unscrupulous rascality, would put to
the blush other actions for which the law would hang a man without
mercy, all other men applauding, but with this difference, that whereas
the former demanded a creeping and crawling cowardliness to insure
success, the latter involved iron nerve and the well-nigh daily shaking
hands with death--death, too, in many an appalling and ghastly form. All
of which was "dark" talking as far as Laurence was concerned, though the
day was to come when its meaning should stand forth as clear as a
printed page.
Even now, however, he was not absolutely mystified--far from it, indeed;
for he himself was a hard thinker, owning an ever-vivid and busy brain.
He could put half a dozen meanings to any one or other of his
companion's utterances, and among them probably the right one. And, as
they talked on, he became alive to something almost magnetic--a sort of
subtile, compelling force--about Hazon. Was it his voice or manner or
general aspect, or a combination of all three? He could not tell. He
could only realize that it existed.
For some days after this conversation the two men did not come together,
though they would nod the time of day to each other as before, and
Laurence, who had other considerations upon his hands--monetary and
agreeable--did not give the matter a thought. At last he noticed that
Hazon's place at the table was vacant--remembering, too, that it had
been so for a day or two. Had he left?
To his inquiries on that head he obtained scant and uncordial response.
Hazon was ill, some believed, while others charitably opined that he was
"on the booze." Whatever it was no one cared, and strongly recommended
Laurence to do likewise.
The latter, we have shown, was peculiarly unsusceptible to public
opinion, which, if it influenced him at all, did so in the very opposite
direction to that which was intended. Accordingly, he now made up his
mind to ascertain the truth for himself--to which end he found himself
speedily knocking at the door of Hazon's room, the while marvelling at
his own unwonted perturbation lest his overture should be regarded as an
intrusion.
"Heard you were ill," he said shortly, having entered in obedience to
the responsive "Come in." "Rough luck being ill in a place like this, or
indeed in any place, for that matter. Thought I'd see if there's
anything I could do for you."
"Very good of you, Stanninghame. Sit down there on that box--it's lower
than the chair, and therefore more comfortable. Yes, I feel a bit
knocked out. A touch of the old up-country shivers, or something of the
kind. It's a thing you never entirely pull round from, once you've had
it. I'll be all right, though, in a day or two."
The speaker was lying on his bed, clad in his trousers and shirt. The
latter, open from the throat, revealed part of a great livid scar,
running diagonally across the swarthy chest, and representing what must
have been a terrific slash. Two other scars also showed on the muscular
forearm, half-way between elbow and wrist. What was it to Laurence
whether this person or that person lived or died? Why, nothing. Yet
there was something so pathetic, so helpless in the aspect of the man,
lying there day after day, patient, solitary, uncomplaining--shunned and
avoided by those around--that appealed powerfully to his feelings.
Heavens! was he turning soft-hearted at his time of life, that he should
feel so unaccountably stirred by the bare act of coming to visit this
ailing and unbefriended stranger?
In truth, there was nothing awe-inspiring about the latter now. His
piercing black eyes seemed large and soft; the expression of his dark
face was one of weariful helplessness, yet of schooled patience. A queer
thought flashed through Laurence's brain. Was it in Hazon's power to
produce whatever effect he chose upon the minds of others? Had he
chosen, for some inscrutable purpose, to render himself shunned and
feared? Was he now, on like principle, adopting the surest means to win
over to him this one man who had sought him out on his lonely sick-bed?
and if so, to what end? It was more than a passing thought, nor from
that moment onward could Laurence ever get it entirely out of his mind.
"Fill your pipe, Stanninghame," said Hazon, breaking into this train of
thought, which, all unconsciously, had entailed a long gap of silence.
"I don't in the least mind smoke, although I can't blow off a cloud
myself just now--at least I have no inclination that way," he added,
reaching for a bottle of white powder which stood upon a box by the
bedside, and mixing himself a modicum of quinine.
"Had a doctor of any sort, Hazon?"
"What good would that do--except to the doctor? I know what's the
matter with me, and I know exactly what to do for it. I don't want to
pay another fellow a couple of guineas or so to tell me. Not but what
doctors have their uses--in wounds and surgery, for instance. But I'm
curiously like an animal. When I get anything the matter with me--which
I don't often--I like to creep away and lie low. I like to take it
alone."
"Well, I'm built rather that way myself, Hazon. I won't apologize for
intruding, because you know as well as I do that no such consideration
enters into the matter. Still, I want you to know that if there's
anything I can do for you, you have only to say so."
"Thanks. You are not quite like--other people, Stanninghame. Life is no
great thing, is it, that everybody should stir up such a mighty fuss
about clearing out of it?"
"No, it's no great thing," assented Laurence darkly. "Yet it might be
made so."
"How that?"
"With wealth. With wealth you can do anything--command anything--buy
anything. They say that wealth won't purchase life, but very often it
will."
"You're about three parts right. It will, for instance, enable a man to
lead the life he needs in order to preserve his physical and mental
vigour at its highest. Even from the moralist's point of view it is all
round desirable, for nothing is so morally deteriorating as a life of
narrow and cramped pinching, when all one's best years are spent in
hungering and longing for what one will never again attain."
"You speak like a book, Hazon," said Laurence, not wondering that the
other should have sized up his own case so exhaustively--not wondering,
because he was an observer of human nature and a character-reader
himself. Then, bitterly, "Yet that pumpkin-pated entity, the ponderous
moralist, would contend that the lack of all that made life worth living
was good as a stimulus to urge to exertion, and all the hollow old
clap-trap."
"Quite so. But how many attain to the reward--the end of the said
exertion? Not one in a hundred. And then, in nine cases out of ten, how
does that one do it? By fraud, and thieving, and over-reaching, and
sycophancy--in short, by running through the whole gamut of the scale of
rascality--rascality of the meaner kind, mark you. Then when this winner
in the battle of life comes out top, the world crowns him with fat and
fulsome eulogy, and falls down and worships his cheque-book, crying,
'Behold a self-made man; go thou and do likewise!'"
"You've not merely hit the right nail on the head, Hazon, but you've
driven it right home," said Laurence decisively, recognizing that here
was a man after his own heart.
Two or three days went by before Hazon felt able or inclined to leave
his bed, and a good part of each was spent by Laurence sitting in the
sick man's room and talking. And it may have been that the lonely man
felt cheered by the companionship and the friendliness that proffered
it, what time all others held aloof; or that the two were akin in ideas,
or both; but henceforward a sort of intimacy struck up between them,
and it was noticed that Hazon no longer went about invariably alone.
Then people began to look somewhat queerly at Laurence.
"You and 'the Pirate' have become quite thick together, Stanninghame,"
said Rainsford one day, meeting him alone.
"Well, why not?" answered Laurence, rather shortly, resenting the
inquisitional nature of the question. Then point blank, "See here,
Rainsford. Why are you all so down on the man? What has he done,
anyway?"
"You needn't get your shirt out, old chap," was the answer, quite
good-humouredly. "Look here, now--we are alone together--so just between
ourselves. Do you notice how all of these up-country going fellows shunt
him--Wheeler, for instance? and Garway, who is at your hotel, never
speaks to him. And Garway, you'll admit, is as good a fellow as ever
lived."
"Yes, I'll own up to that. What then?"
"Only this, that they know a good deal that we don't."
"Well, what do they know--or say they know?"
"Look here, Stanninghame," said Rainsford, rather mysteriously, "has
Hazon ever told you any of his up-country experiences?"
"A few--yes."
"Did he ever suggest you should take a trip with him?"
"We have even discussed that possibility."
"Ah----!" Then Rainsford gave a long whistle, and his voice became
impressive as he resumed: "Watch it, Stanninghame. From time to time
other men have gone up country with Hazon, but--_not one of them has
ever returned_."
"Oh, that's what you're all down on him about, is it?"
The other nodded; then, with a "so-long," he cut across the street and
disappeared into an office where he had business.